During a strike, union members filmed replacement workers crossing a picket line and threatened to post the images on the web. This triggered a complaint to Alberta’s privacy commissioner, who in 2009 ordered the union to stop the filming and destroy the videos.

The Alberta Court of Appeal found in 2012 that although publishing the images would have violated Alberta’s privacy statute, the legislation violates the freedom of expression guarantees in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Alberta’s Privacy Commissioner appealed to the Supreme Court, and oral arguments were heard last June. The commissioner and the province of Alberta argued that the appellate court didn’t balance freedom of expression with the statute’s objective of protecting individual privacy.

Meanwhile, the union asked the court to recognize a novel argument that had been rejected by Alberta’s appellate court: the filming was “union journalism.” This would have avoided the reach of Alberta’s privacy statute, which contains a specific exemption for media reporting.